


The Lone Man and The Wolf

by EdilMayHampsen



Series: Blind Faith [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Almost violence, Cannon typical Jon on his bs again, Cannon typical loneliness, F/F, F/M, Fluff, It has stuff going in but I don't know how to tag it?, It has swears, M/M, Medium Burn, Minor panic attack allusions, This is mostly fluff and pining, basically "what would happen if sasha lived", expect some angst, spoilers for seasons 1-4, technically counts as slow burn?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24815974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdilMayHampsen/pseuds/EdilMayHampsen
Summary: Sasha has survived the not-them, Tim is trying to keep it together, and Jon wakes up from his coma with a fleeting hope to get Martin back from the lonely.Part one of the Blind Faith Series
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Series: Blind Faith [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794976
Comments: 27
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Cws: Hospitals, blink-and-you'll-miss-it drug allusion,

Jon wakes up slowly. Reaching with a smile for a hand at his bedside that wouldn’t be there. Martin was gone. Not because he doesn’t care, but because barely any light-- nothing that can make his soul glow-- filters through the window of Jon’s hospital room.

The white of a newly built street lamp mixed with the breeze outside sends the shadows of leaves dancing off the walls and floors. Jon remembers the fear he felt as a child, sitting curbside at the city library at night, knowing without Knowing that his grandmother should’ve been there already. But without a watch to confirm his anxiety, all he could do was feel the time slip away from him at the whim of his exaggeration. Wondering idly if he’d ever get home again. Or if he’d have to sleep on the cool concrete.

Jon Knew he had been in this room for a very long time.

He stood, feeling a little awkward on his feet, much more-so than usual. His knees giving a crack before settling into that familiar under-exercised ache. 

Jon thought he ought to find someone. A late nurse, maybe. Inform someone with a cell phone he hadn’t died in however long it had been-

The image hit him harder than the explosion had. His memory but from a different angle. Sasha wrenching the detonator from Tim’s hands.

_ “You’re the biggest one here. If you distract them we can still do this.” _

A tense pause. Something--Unfamiliar to Jon--in the air as he  _ Observed _ , feeling perverse.

_ “Do it for Danny? Do it for me?” _

When Jon’s sight returned to his eyes, he was standing in a hallway, too far from his room to turn back with no memory of where he'd come from. But it was the bland white and blue tile of a medical hallway, and not covered in mirrors and sickening colors, so he plowed ahead.

The lone receptionist at the desk gave him a tired, but yielding look. Jon realized he was dressed in an oversized T shirt with the sleeves torn off, leaving easy access to his arms. Around one of which was strapped the tight gauze of an injection bandage.

“Something keeping you up dear? Do you have a prescription for that?” the receptionist seemed to catch herself “Of course I’d have to check the system and call a nurse before giving you...medication.” Her eyes slid wearilly to the bandage on Jon’s arm.

“No. No I, um. I just woke up.” Jon tried to wet his lips, but his mouth was sandpaper dry. “I think It’s been a while.”

“How long?” she asked sweetly, taking her hands off her keyboard to give her full attention.

“Um, what month is it?”

\-----

“Jonathan Sims?” Comes a familiar voice. 

Jon looks up to see Daisy, his chest tightens with hope and then with suspicion. She’s dressed in her old police uniform and measuring him with her eyes. “Yes, how are y-”

“These belong to you.” She says, thrusting a folder and tape recorder out to him. Jon takes it, a bit confused, but Daisy doesn’t let go, leaning in to whisper “Don’t try and talk to me now, it’ll look weird, but I thought you’d need this.” 

Then Daisy turns to leave without another word.

Jon doesn’t know what he expected from the woman he’d almost killed trying to stop the unknowing. He’d hope they would be friends, or at least close enough to talk like real people do. But he knows he shouldn’t be disappointed. Daisy was a professional. She was being helpful. 

It doesn’t stop the sting of rejection he feels that the first person he met was gone so fast. Jon hopes to all hope that it won't become a pattern, but the nurse called  _ Tim _ to pick him up. 

Jon doesn’t expect much.

With shaking fingers, he flips the statement open, and begins to read.

\-----

  
  


Tim bursts in breathing hard, his hair wet from the damp outside, and from the anxious sweat coating his forehead. 

“Jon.” he said when they locked eyes.

He strode over, crossing the reception on long legs, and grabbing Jon by the shoulders. He pressed his hands onto Jons arms and then picked up his chin as if to check that the man was still solid. Jon let it happen, even though he was sore from the doctor’s prodding and utterly exhausted. The dreams he’d had left him anxious and upset, the fidgeting feeling of drinking too much caffeine. As if something new was in his blood, fueling him.

Still, he watched, utterly resigned, as Tim battled a relieved smile. Talking the objects that had been left in Jon’s room like sacrifices at an altar, and placing them in the back seat of his truck. There’s a scrapbook full of pressed flowers. Half of the pages are blank. But the others are full of polaroids capturing vase after vase of arrangements against the leafy window of Jon’s hospital room.

Notes backed with decorative paper tell the meaning of the flowers. Hopeful, yearning. Many of the captions dissolve from formal into poetry. Jon traces the inefficient loops of Martin’s handwriting from the passenger seat. At least Martin stayed with him, will hopefully stay with him. Jon looks over as Tim unplugs the aux cord and tunes the radio to 70s hits. Mumbling something about “nights like these.” It wasn’t Martin who came for him, Jon thinks. Then he tries not to think.

“I’m very sorry for the trouble. I doubt this is how you wanted to spend a night.” Jon says.

“Ya, I’d rather you not be in a coma.” Tim snorts.

“Sorry.”

“Why are you--No. I do want you dead, Jon, my god. Look I should apologize for everything. All the things I did. And I said. I think I’m, just a little--” Tim grips the steering wheel tighter “It doesn’t matter. That’s for another day. Point is I’m sorry.”

Jon studies his face. A lot can change in six months, he thinks. That doesn’t mean he trusts Tim. Not yet.

“It’s alright.” he says.

They drive for twenty minutes in silence before Jon realizes he doesn’t know the streets around him. “My flat-”

“Can’t exactly skip your lease for six months, Jon.” Tim turns his eyes from the road to give a sympathetic look. “Martin gave hell trying to get Mr.Spooky to cover the expense, said it was a workplace accident, but no-go.” Tim flares his nose, but looks resigned. 

“Your stuff is in storage, but we split your fridge.” He’s too pleased when he says “I got your sizable pocky collection.”

Jon stares down at the image of a dozen roses in his lap. Dried petals tapped to the page as if they’re cascading downwards, getting caught on the wind.

“And what did…” He doesn’t want to say Martin “What did the others take?”

“Ah, we had to fight Sasha for your cell phone. She said it would be ‘nice practice’. Can you believe? Of course you can. It’s Sasha.” Tim chortles fondly “ Martin was all ‘It’s an invasion of privacy’ and Sasha was like ‘’He works at The Magnus Institute, Jon doesn’t have any-” He bit his lip.

“Sorry. I should’ve thought before I...said anything.”

“That’s perfectly alright, Tim. I wish I could say she’s wrong.” Jon studies Tim’s face in the rear-view mirror. Carefully set in a positive neutrality, even though something flickers behind his eyes. Jon decides to risk it. “ Your Sasha voice is too high, and too staccato. Definitely Not-Sasha.”

It took Tim a minute to recognise the joke. “Boss!” he says, scandalized. “Elg, I hated that thing. Couldn’t beat it to death hard enough, if you asked me. At least you didn’t  _ know _ Elizabeth. I almost wish I’d forgotten her too.”

“Wrapping a table in old cobwebs was not exactly a pleasant experience.”

“The power of Teamwork.” Tim deadpans.

\-----

There wasn’t much to take up the lift to Tim’s flat, so they did it in a single trip. Tim had offered to carry everything, but Jon clutched to the scrapbook. It smells like old florals, and if he closes his eyes hard enough, just a tiny bit of the man who had delicately taped them in place. Judging by the confusion on Tim’s face, Jon was the only one who knew it’s contents. Which wasn’t surprising, as the nurses found it slipped carefully under Jon’s bed.

Tim turns to Jon as he unlocks the door “Now, Sasha should be asleep, so try not to make too much noise.”

“Having a sleepover in my honor?” Jon asks “ I’m flattered.”

It only earns him a weird look.

They step inside, Jon finds a lightswitch, only to reveal a dreadful looking Sasha staring at her computer screen with a bored and only half-awake expression.

“Jesus, woman!” Tim startles.

“Don’t ‘woman’ me Tim Stoker, I live here too...Hi Jon”

‘Roomates,’ Jon realizes. ‘It’s safer that way.’

“Jooon, please give me your samsung password? Their cloud is a pain in the butt to get into. I’ve been cracking for ages. Why is your grocery list protected under such a strong password?”

“Maybe I’m not proud of my diet.” Jon says, sitting on the unfurled futon beside her, and waiting for the perfect time to snatch his phone back.

“I wouldn’t be either. Let’s see the highlights-- Sugar cookie tea. Sugar cookie,  _ flavored _ tea.”

Tim presses a hand to his chest, having dumped Jon’s stuff on the dining room table “Martin would be ashamed!”

That earns him a glare.

“Caffeine powder, no surprise there. Digestives-”

“Not the chocolate ones.”

“That isn’t one bit better, boss.”

“And finally, Mayonnaise,’ get the extra large jar this time.’”

Jon doesn't feel the need to explain that conditioner is  _ expensive _ and putting mayonnaise in your afro is  _ truly terrible _ but effective.

Instead he says “I make my own tartar sauce.”

“But no fish?” Sasha asks.

Jon doesn’t deign to respond.

“Boss, I’ve seen you do a lot of freaky stuff--and I’m saying this as a friend-- but if you secretly eat mayonnaise from the jar I’m taking you back to the hospital.”

That earns a laugh from Jon. Not because it’s particularly funny, but because his head is swimming with fatigue and the change of it all. What happened to the Tim that could hardly look Jon in the eye? The Tim that lusted for vengeance against an enemy he couldn’t know?

_ “Do it for Danny? Do it for...for me?” _

Jon shakes his head, his laugh changing into an exhausted sigh. Sasha takes the hint.

“The Futon is yours,” She says as she stands “Excuse me for lounging here, it had a nice effect. ‘ _ Jesus woman!’ _ ” 

She laughs brightly as she carries her things to a hallway in the back of the room.

“Phone.” Jon warns, and she scowls at him playfully, tossing it. Jon lets it land on the futon next to him.

“Well I’ll, uh. I’ll see you in the morning, boss.” Tim says, rocking on his heels.

There are so many things he isn’t saying.

“Goodnight Tim.”

Jon unlocks his phone, relieved to see his last text from Georgie change to “opened”. So Sasha respected his privacy after all. 

_ Jon: Hello. It's been a while _

It's late enough that Jon doesn’t expect Georgie to reply, so he turns off his phone and closes his eyes.

‘So Tim and Sasha are still here,’ he thinks. ‘Even if Daisy is… Well that’s good to know. That means that old friends are okay. Jon can live with just three friends,’ he decides. He feels more than grateful. 

‘They want me around,’ and a smile is touching his face as he pulls up the blanket to hide his giddiness from the living room.

Two friends. 

Two friends, Jon corrects himself. Martin might him, and for good reason too. It's not like Jon was good to Martin, sweet, kind Martin, but he’d always assumed they’d be together anyways. That Martin would always support him.

Jon was a fool.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day back at work is not fun!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for panic attack illusions and Elias

The morning was pleasant. Sasha had made Mandazi specially for Jon, while Tim cut fruit and served a beverage that smelled of chocolate and cinnamon. 

“You’ve gone six months without caffeine. No good reason to start up again.” Tim explains “Consider yourself lucky.”

“I’ll give you coffee if you promise not to go into work today.” Sasha tries.

Jon gives her a wary look “As generous as that offer seems, I have to refuse. You know how it is.”  _ paranormal fear god to feed  _ he doesn't say.

She nods. 

“At least take it easy. It’s not like you’ll get fired for slacking off.”

She meant it as a joke, but the room grew cold as it passed from her lips.

“Sor-”

“There’s a cafe by the institute.” Jon cuts in, forcing his tone to be merry. It makes his mouth feel weird. “So if I wanted coffee who could really stop me?”

“ _ Oh _ smug Jon hours is it, Sims?” Tim lets his voice drop to the low, scary rumble that was all too common before the unknowing “Well I’m watching you, Sims. I know what you are.”

He lets it hang in the air for a moment. Sasha bites her lip.

“A recovering caffeine addict who I’m not gonna let relapse, of course!” His tone light again, but when he notices the tension he’d injected into the conversation, he says “Sorry I was such an ass then, boss, I’ve been working on-”

“Not  _ now _ .” Jon says. “Thank you. For giving me another chance at-” Jon sweeps an arm across the room, lingering on where Tim and Sasha sat across from him, hand-in-hand. “At everything, but you know I’m not good at...emotions. I need to do something I  _ can _ do.” He mimes holding a statement “I need to get back to the archives...And also coffee.”

“Jon!” Sasha laughs. She throws a donut in his direction, and Jon, miraculously, manages to dodge. 

It’s nice to share a laugh with Sasha and Tim. It had been so long since he’d heard Tim laugh. Long before the unknowing and Jon’s half-year nap. It’s refreshing. Feeling just a little bit like home.

“Ah, before I forget, Sash grabbed you some clothes from this nice shop nearby. It’s in the bedroom on the dresser.”

_ The _ bedroom. Jon notices. He finds it unhelpful, figuring he’ll just look through the nearest door. 

“I found your sizes on your phone. I can’t believe you needed to write that down.”

“I absolutely can.” Tim counters.

“You didn’t have to do that for me. I have plenty of clothes in...storage, now.” 

Sasha chuckles guiltily, “Yeeeah, but your stuff looks so stiff and...”

“Professionally academic?” Jon offers.

“Uncomfortable.” she finishes. “I’ve been trying to dress you up for ages but you never hit the shops with me. So excuse the opportunism.”

The outfit isn’t too bad. Straight-legged trousers with long pleats running up the outside of his knee. Instead of the crisp white button ups he's used to, this one was a soft mint, the ends up his sleeves curling into neat little puffs. With an emerald green sweater vest layered on top. 

It feels  _ good _ . 

Sasha is eyeing him from where she stands on the tube. Jon would feel uncomfortable about how her eyes flicked from his face, to his chest and legs if she hadn’t seen him sleeping so many times over the last few months. He knows she's eyeing adjustments to sew for him. 

Tim pinches her side “Give the man some space to breath? He has enough  _ eyes _ on him already.” Sasha nods and gives a peck on the cheek, smiling to herself and whispering something about “centimeters on the machine”.

Jon thinks it's nice to see friends so affectionate.

It's weird being out in the tube. His senses feel sharp. Seeing the faces of strangers more intense, somehow. More intimate. He doesn’t like being able to read the looks of distaste he gets from the punk kids heading to school. Jon knows he has an upper class-aura about him, Sasha had said so once the few times they’d dragged him out of work. Martin said he’d looked “tastefully disheveled” but hadn’t disagreed.

_ Martin Blackwood. Twenty-nine. 6’1 and fourteen stone. Two-hundred and ninety six freckles on the face, approximately three thousand total. His hair in medium lighting is the shade #9E654A but appears to be #F5CAA5 in the sunlight.  _

Stop. Stop. Stop. 

The Archivist tries to turn it off, but the floodgates are open, if even just a crack. 

_ Blackwood has taken the pottermore placement test exactly twenty one times and has gotten Slytherin fifteen times and Hufflepuff the other six. He has only shared the hufflepuff result. He requires a prescription of  _ _ +3.50 +3.00 x 45 glasses, but owns a prescription of +2.00 + 2.00 x 50. He thinks the frames are ugly but cannot afford a new pair due to caring for his sickly mother. _

“I shouldn’t know this. It isn’t my place.” He says through gritted teeth.

_ No friends or acquaintances besides his mother and co-workers. Most often referred to as “Too soft” by Tim Stoker, “Friend-shaped” by Sasha James and “Incompetent” by Jonathan Sims. _

Jon cringes at the words. He knows he wasn’t good to Martin. He Knows and he regrets it.

_ He enjoys retro tech, and spends his free time looking for old tapes at antique shops. He doesn’t have to pay for them, and feels a mild guilt about the fact. His nails are bitten to a length of 1.03 centimeters due to undiagnosed general anxiety.  _

Something sad flares up in Jon’s chest.

_ He is currently sitting at about 4 _ _ 0° N 44’ 73 °W 59’, sitting across from no one. His fingers are stained with ink from the poem he is writing. It goes as follows- _

_ “Because you were not here _

_ I can only stand in your footsteps _

_ As the earth protests _

_ Because I do not belong _

_ Because I do not deserve you _

_ Not under your spotlight gaze _

_ I am not safe anymore _

_ Not in the light of you and yours- _

“That's quite enough!” Jon snaps. Sweating and breathing hard. 

He’s standing outside the institute now, the slight chill of morning biting the skin of his ankles.

“You alright, Boss?” Tim’s brow is furrowed. The man had his arm thrown over Jon, jacket curtaining his other side as if they were hiding from the paparazzi.

“Is Jon back?” 

“Yeah.” Tim answers. “Let’s get you inside.”

He tries to shuffle Jon along, but for some reason he resists. Turning with a burning curiosity to look down the steps. 

Martin stares back. Wide-eyed and grinning. And for a moment Jon feels very  _ good _ . Hopeful, maybe. But Martin's face twists into reluctant confusion, and then shame. He ducts his head and shuffles past the group, slipping into a side entrance without as much as a hello.

Tim gives Jon’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “He’s been like that for a while.” and he adds as an afterthought “Don’t blame yourself.”

“We were going to tell you once we got inside.” Sasha supplies “I promise.”

“Yes. I believe you.” His sentences are short and tense, and as he feels his throat beginning to close in panic, all he can say is “Inside.”

\-----

Jon doesn’t get much work done that day. When he steps into his office it's just as cold as he remembers, albeit much dustier. The light that shines in puts the dancing particles on full display. Someone had opened Jon’s window while he was gone. Sunlight was a luxury The Archivist didn’t normally allow himself. Not when he was failing the people just outside his door.

He remembered Sasha and Martin gently easing him through his paranoia. Showing their hands as they entered the room. Martin poured their tea from the same kettle, giving Jon his tea bag to examine before he brewed their tea. The same sugar. The same cream. Together, with Martin. 

He looks at a little table positioned in the sun. Someone had taken it from storage. The mundane storage, not the one that kills. On the little table are two pots. One of white and purple hyacinths and the other of forget-me-nots. There’s a notebook-size square where the dust hasn’t fallen. Whatever was there was removed recently.

Jonathan’s curiosity piques, and he slides the scrapbook out of his bag. ‘I was going to give it back to Martin,’ he lies to himself, ‘that’s why it’s there.’ Just as Jon thought, it fits perfectly. 

It doesn’t make up for the fact that Martin isn’t  _ here. _

Jon pulls his laptop open.

How to care for hyacinths.

_ Bright light, damp but not wet soil.  _

The eye supplies the information before his finger hits enter.

How to care for forget-me-nots

_ Water deeply when dry twice a month. Use full sun. _

Alright. Jon pulls his hands from the hands from the keyboard and checks the soil. Recently watered. Very recently. It feels like another slap. 

What do hyacinths  _ mean _ ? 

He didn’t intend to ask the question, it was idle wondering, another thing to turn over in his mind like a smooth stone between fingers, but it’s too late

.

_ Hyacinths have different meanings depending on the color. Yellow symbolizes jealousy; Red, play, or recreation; White is loveliness or prayers; Purple symbolizes forgiveness and regret. _

Jon feels the sob like roots curled around his lungs, tendrils and leaves trying to escape from between his lips, but he grits his teeth together and stays quiet, letting his shoulders spasm with the pain, trying to stop himself from spiraling.

_ You don’t deserve this, no matter how it feels. You don’t deserve this. _

_ But that doesn’t mean you deserve Martin either. _

_ Not after the things you said to him, not after how you abandoned him, especially not now that he knows he’s worth enough to leave.  _

_ But the worst part is that he will come back, and you still won’t deserve him, because you put yourself above everyone, just like Gertrude, isn’t that right, archivist? _

Jon can’t tell his own thoughts and feelings from that of the eye, so he steadies himself like a diver on the edge of their boat, and leans into it. 

\-----

There’s a moment of black across his vision, before Jon realizes he’s looking into shadow. The room he views is small but not claustrophobic. A tape recorder clicks on.

  
  


“Hello, Jonathan.” Elias says. “I asked that you not come and see me. But I guess I can’t stop you from using this method.” He hums. Jon looks up to see Elias sitting at a plain desk, he taps his pen on his chin just as he always would whenever Jon entered his office, but instead of pondering spreadsheets he sits surrounded by crosswords and sudoku. 

“I Know what you would like to ask.” Elias continues before Jon can speak “Don’t try to say anything. You’ll end up speaking where you are--The beholding only transports your vision, It watches, remember, no interfering--you’ll just get hoarse.

Jon feels his mouth shut somewhere far away.

Elias laughs in satisfaction “You’re quick! But I do hate you being here, when we look at eachother I feel cross-eyed it’s thoroughly unpleasant.”

“But of course you’re not leaving, Jon. although trust me when I say I’m the more patient of us two, you're not leaving until you get answers, because you’re The Archivist. I must say I’m proud.”

Shut up, Jon thinks, the message gets across.

“No need to be rude, I was going to show you the way. Open your eyes Jonathan.  **_Don't you want to open your eyes._ ** ” 

An intoxicating wave of compulsion washes over Jon, it smells like sage, oranges, and mothballs, the kind of air that follows old money--wine and perfume aged so long that scents blend from notes to harmonies to meaningless noise-- and the underlying musk of age as if by dousing it in everything else he could pretend it isn’t there. Jonathan gags.

“ _ It isn’t pleasant to see your fellow eye, to behold your inner self because I am your inner self, your inner desires.  _ **_Do you feel shame to behold me, Jonathan._ ** _ I feel no shame at seeing you, I feel pride. Do you want to feel pride.” _

Jonathan feels his whole body tense and his nerves prickle with resistance.

“ **_Ask the eye, Jon._ ** **”**

‘I am asking!’ Jon screams with a jaw so tight he almost bites through his tongue, but Elias can’t hear, Jon can’t hear either, but with Elias’s eyes glazed over and looking distant, maybe he can  _ see _ . A laugh rips through Elias, a sound bigger than the man can ever hope to be, it compounds in Jons ears like the eye of an insect.

“ _ Will you let the eye open.  _ **_Do you want it._ ** ”

It’s as if Jon is a house. Inside, tucked in the attic, which is itself hidden is a closet full of costumes --a costume for the archivist, one for the Jon Georgie sees, another for strangers-- is a small wooden box. A box full of black water. 

Elias entered with a spare key he was never given and threw open the wardrobe, tearing costume off their hangers and splitting them at the seams, he climbed to the attic with the speed of a spider and was prying open the box with a crowbar.

But Jon fought like Hell.

\-----

When he opens his eyes three minutes have passed. Jon has a pounding headache. He groans and sinks into his chair.

‘Maybe I should tell Sasha,’ he thinks, ‘get some pain meds and take a break.’ He knows he should, but he doesn’t. Daisy seemed bothered enough to see him, best not to bother anyone else. 

Jon opens his laptop and tries not to think about Purple Hyacinths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the bonus chapter for the first update! Sorry to draw this out but also >:)  
> I'll see you next friday!
> 
> [flower meanings](https://www.flowermeaning.com/hyacinth-flower-meaning/)
> 
> betas:  
> Imbekkable- Check out their awesome fic [ And They Were Zoommates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842450/chapters/57297796)  
> [ Gheloured ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gheloured)  
> and [ Lleah on instagram! ](https://instagram.com/lleahistired?igshid=ljvxs1wgs2q5) (She has AWESOME TMA art go check it out!)


	3. Party Foul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The full statement cut from chapter three for brevity. Does not need to be read for the timeline to make sense, it's just kinda fun.  
> CWs for non-consent (Nothing sexual), body horror and a poorly thought out timeline.

Statement of Ms. Cecilia Briar regarding a strange encounter at a town picnic

In Oakhill, South England. Original statement given april 23rd,1898

Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. 

Statement Begins:

Mr.Magnus, I have seen your advertisement in a paper. It was very old, but I do hope you have the same address. Or that you are still alive. Regardless, here is my story.

I consider myself a social butterfly. It’s all you can be, really, in a small town like Oakhill. I grew up there, born in my childhood bedroom in a warm bath with a nurse called out from a nearby hospital. My family was old-school, see. Still are. 

I was the youngest of the girls. Which means that, yes, I was dressed in hand-me-downs, but I had a lot to choose from. Once my mother taught me to sew and do my own hair, my appearance didn’t suffer for my lack of new things. I’m not ashamed to say I was the prettiest. I never won the beauty pageants the town held, but they always gave the prize to the smallest girls to make them feel better about themselves, and I was gracious enough to allow it.

I’ve always been gracious. I could use my looks to convince boys here and there to treat someone unkindly, or do the work myself and get away with it, but I rarely did. Only when I was younger and in a terrible mood. I found it isn’t worth the grudge that comes afterward.

That doesn’t make me kind. I’m nice at best, and I have no fear of the fact. It is all superficial. I do not like people. They exhaust me. But I must admit they are useful. 

I do not like Oakhill. The people are not only tiring, but drab. They don’t make gatherings worth my time. Don’t serve as much champagne and fruit as they should. But I stayed around Oakhill because I could use those people. 

I can grab them with my words. Twist them. It’s easy and it’s  _ fun _ . I receive my necessary attention and praise, I’ve even worked my way towards gifts.

I met my husband like this, actually. About a month after this all happened. He vacationed nearby and when he asked for the best seamstress he could find on short notice, he was sent to me. Just as I had planned, I met someone who could steal me away from the godforsaken town.

The actual encounter of interest happened at a town picnic, in 1874 mostly young women, mothers and children. A late summer gathering. It would’ve been a beautiful day if I were alone. Instead, I was stuck playing communal babysitter and kissing up to the women with the richest cousins.

_ She  _ appeared about when the buffett was laid out, beelining for the plates before the littlest ones were even called in from the fields. She piled her plate high with deviled eggs and ham. Only deviled eggs and ham, to the point where I worried that it might slip off her plate and ruin the nice blanket I’d layed out. 

When she caught me staring, though I’m sure I wasn’t the only one staring, she looked startled. As if she had made a mistake solving a math problem in front of the class, and I was the schoolteacher who had just tutted my tongue.

So, nodding to herself, she went for a second plate, placed on it a single slice of bread, and looked up at me again. She must have taken the confusion on my face as approval, because she nodded faster, and turned away. Sitting with her back to the company as she ate just out of ear-shot.

Now, I try not to gossip. It leaves a bad impression and a terrible taste in the mouth, but sometimes it is called for, and when it is, it is delightful. Something gleeful in drawing out the secrets of those around me. Sinking my teeth into their past-transgressions, their worry-flesh and drawing it out with a straw. Savoring the black shame on my tongue. 

I hoped this would be one of those moments. Just one more slight slip-up and it would be called for. I would not be held responsible for saying what everyone is thinking. I would not be held responsible either way. I am simply too gracious.

But for now I ignored the temptation. I made sandwiches for the pickiest children and earned a few grateful looks, before setting down with a plate of my own. I put up my umbrella to sit under, and grabbed a book from my bag to quietly slip into if the people around me got boring. 

Saren, one of the older women, though not by much, dove into a tale of woe. Her husband and eleven year old son had gotten lost in the woods and returned with mud sewn through their clothes deeper than the cotton. We went around the circle, some knitting, some eating, and gave updates on the heights of our children and our progress in finding husbands. Just deep and embarrassing enough to feign familiarity, without the risk of backlash. 

I waited for someone to introduce the woman that sat so rudely away from us all. I expected to hear she was a distant boarding cousin, or maybe a sister passing through town. But the more I listened, the tenser I grew, as everyone's stories neglected to mention her completely.

After I had joked about the sheer size of a quilt I was knitting, a thinly veiled brag, and the group had lapsed into the comfortable summer silence that isn’t true silence, with the sounds of birds and children denying you that quiet relief. Only then did I dare ask about the girl.

“I assumed she had something to do with you.” Saren admitted, a small smile on her lips “She is quite-” and then she cut herself off.

“Yes. Quite.” I said. 

But as I looked closely at each of the women gathered there, I could see true confusion in their faces. Nobody was hiding an acquaintance from embarrassment. They truly didn’t know.

“Someone should go ask.” One of the younger girls piped in. Her mother swatted her shortly on the arm. 

It was an unusual suggestion, an impolite one, but someone had to make it and I wasn’t going to be me. Seeing the caution and curiosity in all of them, I stood, tugging the small creases out of my skirt.

“I’ll speak to her.” I announced.

I walked over to the woman, watching as she slid a whole egg into her face. 

Turned away from the other women, I don’t bother to hide the disgust I felt.

I cleared my throat. She didn’t respond. So I tried again. Still nothing.

Flustered, I turned back to the group. Instantly they turned away, pretending not to watch. Cowards.

I turned back and set my shoulders, feeling the eyes of the women back on me as soon as I did. “Good. Let them see,” I thought.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, and to my surprise the puff of her fabric crumpled under my hand. It felt, in that brief moment, as if she was missing bones. I’ve looked at anatomy text books and felt over my own shoulder, the shoulders of others. Her clavicle wasn’t there. Her arms had a simple ball-in-socket joint, I’m sure she could’ve bent it in any direction. But I only felt for a second, I pulled away quickly and tried to push it into the back of my mind.

She turned to me. 

“Hello.” I said stiffly “ I’m Cecilia.”

Erika evaluated me, chewing exaggeratedly on the between her lips.

She swallowed. “My name...is Erika. Mustermann.” She drawled, sounding as if she’d never heard of vocal inflection in her life.

I realized my mistake only after I reached to shake her hand.

Her fingers curled around my palm. And then they kept curling. My curiosity overtook me as I brushed my thumb over her knuckles, counting out five joints. I didn’t withhold a shudder.

This woman didn’t appear any different from you or I, Mr.Magnus , was your name? She looked completely normal. I’ve met people with downs, amputees, etc. I’ve met people in every shape, I’ve shaken every hand looking my damned hardest for another like hers. 

But I never found any.

I know how many bones are in the phalanges and there should never be six. Knuckles appearing as they bent from where, before, there was a smooth line of flesh. She was ugly, yes, round about the face, but nothing could’ve explained the wrongness of the body she hid under that dress. 

I tried to slow my breathing and keep eye contact as she gave me that same curious stare from earlier. As if asking silently if she had done it right. Whatever “it” was I couldn’t be sure.

She sized up my features and then ran her eyes down my body. Her pupils dilated as if she was trying to see through the clothes and examine  _ my _ structure. Like leaning over to peak at my exam paper. 

“W-who invited you here?” I said with a forced smile.

“No one.” She replied “No, not no one. You call her...” and then she smiled secretively.

Her teeth were off center and out of order. I thought they were just chipped at first, but then I realized where her Incisors should be, two canines sat. Backwards. Curling out towards me. 

“You call her Saren. Saren didn’t invite me. Not Saren invited me.” she laughed. Erika laughed as if with every push of air her lungs caught on branches. It sounded like  _ Ut Ut Ut _ , a high pitched warbling. She stood, and I took a few steps back.

I was shaking now. Had Saren lied to me? Was this a joke? I was going to  _ get _ her.

  
  


“I-I-I mean of course you are welcome here but you must. I mean. I insist-”

Erika stepped towards the woods, still laughing. I refused to be cut off so rudely, and so I hustled until we walked in stride.

“Please, Erika. I’m sure you’re a lovely lady and the others would love to meet you-.”

She stepped into the taller grass and into the tree line. I paused, wondering where she could possibly be leading me. “She saw some berries.” I thought. “And she clearly isn’t from around here so I should go tell her if they’re poisonous or not. If she goes too far it isn’t my problem. But abandoning her is rude and that simply isn't an option.”

So I stepped in right after her.

As soon as we were out of sight from the others, hidden in the cool darkness of the trees, Erika turned to me. Grin spreading wider on her face, wider than a normal smile could spread on even the happiest of days. All her teeth, and a tongue that seemed too large to fit inside of them on full display. 

I tried to back away, but my shoulders met bark and I could only freeze in stunned silence as she approached me.

“I do not know how this goes.” Erika admitted in her warbling tone. “But I imagine it as such-”

Then she grabbed my chin in wrong fingers and brought her lips to mine, her outwardly curling teeth playing a horrible scraping in my ears as they drew against my own. I put my hands onto her waist to try and force her off but she resisted me, infinitely heavier than I could’ve imagined. Her hips, at least, felt human and right in my hands.

She pulled away, putting only inches between us. “Run away with me, Cecilia.” she whispered. 

The space was enough for me to put my two hands onto her chest and press with all my might. Erika stumbled back.

“That was entirely inappropriate, Ms.Mustermann!” I screeched. The blood boiled hot in my ears, a steady thumping. My hand hit her face hard, and I was too angry to process the feeling of her cheekbone giving way under my hand.

She gave me that same look as always, not even shocked, just studying. 

“Women do not- they don’t-” But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

I turned and walked out of the woods, through the playing children, back to the gaggle of women.

“I am feeling very ill.” I said, looking everywhere but at Saren. “I am going home.”

And I did. It wasn’t a long walk, so I walked all the way there and drew myself a bath and scrubbed until the only trace of Erika that remained was the memory. My determination to leave the oakhill behind forever increasing tenfold.

It was only a few months before I met my husband. I got  _ out _ . We went to London where I could be admired and I attended lavish parties on his arm. 

I took night classes as well, the burning curiosity led me to study every way the human body could have formed, and I knew I would find nothing to defend Erika but I tried anyway. 

Then curiosity took me further, and of this you must tell no one--I implore you to keep it archived but I will tell you in defense of my story-- No other woman I have come across has a mouth that feels like Erika’s did. 

I’m not sure of what happened afterward, but something did. I got a letter addressing the placement of Saren’s orphans last year. I burned it before I got news that might keep me up at night. I regret not keeping it to give to you, now, but I feel no remorse for letting the world have those children as it will.

If this information comes to light I will deny all of it. Thank you for your time Ms.Magnus. I'm sure you run a lovely little library.

Statement ends.

Attached are some of Sasha’s notes on the subject. The village of Oakhill does exist, as does Ms.Briar and a woman named Saren, who’s disappearance is as much a mystery to police records as it is to us. This shows another instance of the entity known as the Not Them, and curiously, their affiliation with the students of Mr.Lionels anatomy class. 

Sasha added in the margins that I would be happy to note Ms.Briar widowed a few years after this statement and lived with her,in many quotes “roommate” until her death in 1915.

More research to be done.

  
  



	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just Normal Archive stuff ;)  
> It's 1 am and I did not read before posting but it's beta'd so???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for murder!

Jon spends most of the day cleaning, skimming over things he’s read before, and browsing the news to catch up. At some point, Sasha brings him a statement.

“Just one for today. We figured you might be...I don’t know. Hungry? It’s the least unsettling real one we could find.”

Jon watches Sasha leaves as his fingers flick through the manilla folder. He sighs and turns the taper recorder on.

_ Statement of Ms. Cecilia Briar regarding a strange encounter at a town picnic _

_ In Oakhill, South England. Original statement given april 23rd,1998 _

_ Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.  _

_ Statement Begins: _

The events play like a movie behind Jon’s eyes.

He comes to his senses with the sharp click of a tape recorder turning off, listening in the new silence to a whispered argument outside his door.

Jon hears the muffled patterns of air he recognised to be his name, and the phrase "Take it easy" in the long, happy lilt of Sasha’s voice. When his assistants have been bickering for a whole minute, he stands to open the door.

Tim tries to play his expression of guilt off as casual, but it doesn't work.

“Here.” Sasha says resolutely, holding a mug out to him. Tied to the handle with twine is a note with Jon’s name on it. He knows the handwriting. 

“Th-thank you.” He says, wondering at how warm it feels in his hands. The same warmth he felt when sharing the sugar and cream.

Tim’s face sours ever so slightly, Jon doesn’t think he’d have noticed if not for his sensitive vision. 

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” Tim says, looking at the floor.

“Well I do. I think Jon deserves-” she sighs.”Well we all deserve a choice. We’ll let you be.” and she grabs Tim’s arm to drag the grumbling man back to the assistant’s bullpen.

Jon returns to his desk and unfolds the note.

_ Dear Jon, _

The “Dear” written in the shaky lines one makes when taking too long to write them.

_ I hope this note and peace offering find you well, even if you choose not to drink it. It is good to see you awake after all this time. Regretfully, I cannot be nearby. Your assistants can explain. Please note that Tim is quite...critical of my decisions. I need you to have a little faith in me. I know how difficult blind faith must be for you. _

_ Enjoy the flowers in your office. You can keep them.  _

_ I know you like the tea I make more than Sasha’s. I’ll try to do this often, even if it’s just as a symbol of our continued allyship, but it will not be everyday. _

_ Lastly, I left something of mine in your hospital room. For now, please keep it safe. _

Jon thinks guiltily back to the the scrap book now tucked under Tim’s futon.

_ Goodbye, _

_ Signed Blackwood. _

Jon’s mouth goes dry. He reads it. Again and again. “Goodbye”. He had never heard those words from Martin. A deliberate series of “See you later”s and “Next time”s were their norm. “Goodbye” feels so final.

“Ah, um. Jon, don’t ask how I know this, I think you should check your phone.” Sasha gives a small smile from where her head has appeared in his doorway. “I didn’t read them, promise, but someone seems concerned.”

Jon almost thinks to change his password, but decides against it.

_ Georgie: You’re absolutely insufferable you know that ?!? _

_ Georgie: I’m glad you’re not DEAD _

_ Georgie: “It’s been a while” my mother’s arse _

_ Georgie:If you don’t reply I’m showing up at your work. Don’t test me, Sims. _

Jon wants to say something, he does, but he suddenly feels so overwhelmed by it all. Georgie’s itching irritation glaring at him through the screen. The gaping hole in his knowledge of  _ whatever _ is happening between Martin and Tim. He wants to talk to Sasha, to Georgie, to Martin, even though The Archivist Knows he can’t. 

‘Maybe he could reach out, just a little.’

_ The Beholder is an eye, not a hand _ .

‘I’m tired of beholding,’ Jon thinks ‘Can’t I just hold?’ He shudders at the idea of touch.

_ Is that what you really want? _

Jon isn’t sure. He doesn’t want to need anybody, that he’s certain, but he doesn’t know if he has a choice. He’s still a man. Still human. Right?

The eye doesn’t answer.

Jon puts his head in his hands, trying to weigh the facts.

‘Sasha certainly wants me around. Tim acts like it, though I can’t be sure.’ 

_ Georgie: I saw you read it. _

_ Georgie: You don't have to reply, you’re probably tired? _

_ Georgie: Let me tell you about someone I met. Lighten the mood? _

_ Jon: K _

_ Georgie: There's the Jon I know! _

_ Georgie: Don’t gag _

_ Georgie: She’s another paranormal investigator. _

_ Jon: … _

_ Georgie: :P! _

_ Georgie: She’s super cute. _

_ Georgie: Probably straight though. _

_ Jon: Who? _

_ Georgie: Melanie king _

_ Jon: ah. _

_ Georgie: what does that mean?! _

_ Jon: Two things _

_ Jon: That woman had rainbow hair when I saw her. You have a shot _

_ Jon: She also hates my guts _

_ Georgie: You probably gave her a reason _

_ Georgie: Probably mutually beneficial if you make up, though. Career-wise ;) _

_ Jon: please don't make me see her _

Read.

Jon takes a shuddering breath and swipes back to his contacts, looking at “Sasha” and “the Hot one” where they weren’t there before. His thumb hovers over Tim.

_ The Hot One _ :  _ tfw an evil clown thinks a little explosion can kill you:  _

_ The Hot One: [img attached] _

Jon blinks at it, barking a sad little laugh.

_ Jon: Thank you. Very funny. _

He moves to Martin’s contact, still not exactly sure why he gave Martin his number when asked, or why Martin seemed so happy about it. He scrolls up for ages to get to the top.f

_ Blackwood: Hello! _

_ Blackwood: Sorry to bother, I need a little help on how to interview people? _

_ Blackwood: Would you mind walking me through it? _

_ Jon: You’re not a bother at all _

_ Call started _

_ Call ended 0:02 _

_ Blackwood: So sorry! Give me one second and I’ll call you back, I didn’t think you’d want to call me. _

_ Jon: Why not? _

He didn’t get a reply to that one, but Jon remembers the conversation. It was a mock interview, mostly, so Martin had the right to skirt questions as he did, and Jon didn’t push it. He felt terrible at the time that Martin didn’t want Jon to know about his mother, in hindsight it was for the best.

_ Martin: Tea? _

_ Martin: ?? _

_ Martin: I’m making you tea xD. Five minutes! _

_ Martin: Tea? _

_ Martin: It would be helpful if you replied so I don’t feel like a creep. _

_ Jon: Sorry. Just assume the answer is yes, I forget to reply often. _

_ Jon: I enjoy your tea. _

_ Jon: (: _

Georgie had said he sounded sarcastic over text, it felt silly, but Martin’s smile was wider when he placed the earl gray on Jon’s desk.

_ Martin: Jonathan, I will not be coming into work today. _

_ Martin: I feel ill. Stomach problems. _

_ Martin: Might be a parasite. _

_ Jon: Alright. Take care (: _

The little active text line is blinking under Jon’s fingers. But what would he even say? Tim would want him to send the little “I lived, Bitch” image he’d insisted Jon send to everyone he knew. Georgie had found it funny, even if she was angry at the context. Jon sighs

‘Is this okay?’

_ Martin Blackwood is currently in a state of self-isolation. _

So he closes his phone, shuts his eyes and revels in how soothed he feels in the cool darkness he finds there.

Jon sips his perfect cup of tea until it’s gone. Letting his mind drift to Martin in a way without longing. Soothing himself with memories. The moments in between their text conversations. The curve of martin’s cheek and #F5CAA5 hair. The feel of his soft hand grounding Jon as the CO2 tries to pull his mind away.

Jons phone buzzes.

_ Georgie: Guess who agreed to come to lunch with us! _

_ Jon: so you blackmailed her _

_ Georgie: It’s not blackmail if it was going in the blooper reel anyway!! _

_ Georgie: What I have for you, on the other hand… _

_ Jon: I don’t want to know _

The chances of his assistance letting Jon go around unsupervised were low. They could risk him getting  _ actual work done _ . Jon puts the horse in front of the carriage.

_ Jon: But I get a plus one. _

_ Georgie: :D!! _

“Sasha!” Jon calls from just outside his office. Her curls bounce as she pops her head out of the bullpen. “I’m meeting a friend. Want to come to lunch with me?”

“I’d love to! Give me five?” 

Tim appears and puts his hand on his chest “What? Don’t want me around anymore? Throwing out an old dog?”  
“I might be in need of a mediator.”

“Ah.” Tim winces “Sasha’s the right choice.”

Jon confirms the details. A sandwich place in walking distance.

“Ready?” Sasha calls. She slides into her cardigan and offers an arm,.

“As much as I’ll ever be.” and he links their elbows together.

“So tell me about this--Yes, see you later Rosie Have a nice lunch!--Tell me about this friend of yours. You have bad blood?”

“Georgie’s a friend from college. My ex.”

“Yikes.”

“No, she’s fine it’s just,” Jon scratches his head as he briefly lets go of Sasha to push open the main entrance doors and hold it for her “She wants me to meet with Melanie King.”

“Not tracking.”

“Rainbow hair, came looking to give a statement, left looking to get a brawl.”

“Ah! She was lovely.”

Jon groans. He should have brought Tim.

Jon is normally a neat eater. He was raised to be proper, and had forced his way through polite conversation often, as much as he hated that. Now, however, He desperately keeps his mouth full in order to avoid it. 

Melanie sneers at his desperate chewing as she slides into her chair, offering a soft hello.

“Hello! You must be Melanie! Jon told me about you, we were just talking about your show. Right Jon?” Jon hums something and gestures to his mouth, and Sasha gives him an unimpressed look. “And you must be Georgie! I’m Sasha.”

“Hey” Melanie repeats. Then winces like she’d been kicked. She had been kicked. Georgie forces a smile.

“Nice to meet you Sasha!” They shake hands “I see you guys already ordered? That’s good! Once we eat we can get to talking so much faster.”

Jon deflates under Melanie's stare. She doesn’t have to say ‘Nice going, man.’ But Jon get’s the idea. Georgie drops her purses and tugs Melanie to the counter.

Their holding hands. A tiny thing in Jon’s heart tugs.

“Georgie is ...fun.” Sasha says.

“Georgie’s the one you have a problem with?”

“Bit forceful? You’ve had a hard time. You're not a week out of a come and she dragged you here to face the enemy.”

“You and Tim drag me places all the time.”

“But only when you actually want to be there. Don’t give me that look! You know need permission to chill out. Like a scho-”

“Please don’t psychoanalyze me right now.” Jon says, resting his head on the table.

“I won’t.” She pauses “But I’m worried, okay? Everyone around you is uncompromising. Push and pull but never  _ being _ pushed. You deserve empathy.”

Jon doesn’t disagree, but he stays silent. Sasha places a hand on his shoulder.

“You do! Everyone deserves to be treated nicely, even if you think-you-don’t-You’re-Back!”

Jon snaps up as the two approach again with their trays, and Sasha yanks her hand away, fiddling with the buttons on her cell.

“They’re out of my favorite. Shame.” Georgie comments. 

Jon reaches to take another bite, but Sasha puts her hand on his and squeezes. Sharp, but reassuring.

Jon clears his throat “ I think an apology is due. I shouldn’t have disrespected your career choice. A bit hypocritical of me, seeing as I do something similar and enjoy Georgie’s work. I guess that’s all i...have to say.” Jon feels like a scolded child as he looks down at his hands, fingers going through the motions of the cat's cradle without the string.

“Yeah, thanks.” Melanie says, utterly infatuated with her food. Georgie gives her a look, and she takes a large bite.

Sasha’s phone buzzes. And she flicks open her messages.

“Shit, Jon! Emergency. Carpenter ants we gotta get back and save the artifacts.”

“What? Sash-”

“Just grab your and hurry up!” She says, wrapping her fries and sandwich up in a bundle of napkins before stuffing it in her purse. Bewildered, Jon stands and does the same. Georgie and Melanie look confused and relieved, respectively.

“I’m so sorry about this. I know you were looking forward to this lunch? We should make up for it sometime. But we really must go.” Sasha is dragging Jon by the wrist before Georgie can Manage a weak ‘Bye?’.

Sasha slows down as soon as they can’t be seen through the window. “Sorry if I scared you.”

“If you  _ scared _ me? I’m not- sash- I’ve- I’ve seen plenty of terrifying things but what the hell?”

“If I hold my off button twice Tim sends me an escape excuse.” She shrugs “It’s handy.”

At Jon's affronted expression she says “Don’t tell me you didn’t want to get out of there. Georgie isn’t my kind of person, and I can deal. But Melanie isn’t your kind of person either and you shouldn’t be forced to kiss and make up. I’ll, I dunno, find her on facebook and apologize or something.”

“Not my kind of person.” Jon echoes, furrowing his brow. Is that what Daisy is? It would make sense. But how many people could possibly be Jon’s ‘kind of person’. Not many, clearly, or he wouldn’t feel so-

“Don’t get like that, Jon. You’ll make other friends.” She reaches for his hand, and they walk for a while back to the institute, surveying the scene. The younger children have been let out of school, and so parents carry children down to the tube. The sky is light, and it reflects off of Sasha’s hair as she takes a deep breath of the freshest air London has had for a while.

“Come eat in the break room with me and Tim?” She sighs, looking off into the distance.

Jon worries his lip. “I...I’d rather--Yes. Sure.” and he feels the same sinking dread he’d just barely escaped from.

“Hey” Sash squeezes his hand again “It’s alright. Today was a lot. Eat in your office, but you are gonna eat. Or else.” She wakes a finger at him with an exaggerated frown until Jon laughs. “And take a nap or something. There’s no rush, not like we have any carpenter ants to battle.”

Jon smiles. A little rest sounds amazing.

When The Archivist wakes up he Knows something is wrong. 

“BASTARD!” Tim screams from the doorway of his office. His fists are clenched and shaking. Jon flinches hard, wondering what he possibly could have done this time. Something behind Jon hits the floor.

“Tim I-”

“Lukas, I know you’re still here. Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean you’re not.” His voice is that same low growl Jon learned to fear, but this time _ protective _ . “I will always find you.” His eyes Zero in on a spot just above Jon’s head. 

Jon’s eyes adjust just in time to the foggy shape of Peter Lukas slam into Jon’s desk as he dodge’s Tim’s punch. Clutching his side, Peter stumbles away from Peter and runs out the door before Jon has had the time to stand.

Tim turns to run after him, then freezes, his eyes going wide, his heart beating at a lower volume. “Shit, Jon.”

Something in the air disperces, but it doesn’t make Jon feel any better. Of course as soon as he gets some sleep something-- He doesn’t even know what happens. Everything is confusing and suddenly too  _ much _ . Jon presses shaking hands into his face as he ties to slow his breathing. Stop and process. Slow. Stop. And process.

_ Know. _

“Are you alright, Jon?” Tim asks. He grabs Jons trembling shoulders like he had back in the hospital, but this time, cards his hands through Jon’s hair. Pressing on Jon’s scalp every few inches as he checks for wounds.

Jon shudders. It’s been a very long time since anyone has done that to him. 

“I’m fine, Tim, just startled.” He looks around taking on final deep breath, spotting the lead pipe resting on the floor alarmingly close to where Jon sits. “Inspired by our friend Elias, I see.”

It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to kill him. It probably wouldn’t be the last.

“If you’re going to kill me, at least make it surprising. Light me on fire, a slow poison, something entertaining.” Jon barks out a morbid laugh, and Tim pulls back, startled.

Yet another worrying thought with origins unknown.

Sasha comes in next, Georgie following behind her with a furrowed brow. 

“Tim?” Sasha says “Is everything alright in here?”

“I came in to tell Jon his friend was here. Found Lukas standing over him with a pipe.”

“Oh my god.” Georgie says. “You come  _ here _ instead of to me? Are you  _ insane _ , Jon?” Sasha rolls her eyes.

Georgie rushes to Jon before running her hands over him as Tim had. Jon knows he’s fine, but he leans into the touch anyways.

“At least I’m alive?” He tries.

Georgie laughs “I mean. Yeah. Let’s be grateful for that.”

They move out of the Institute as a unit, Tim, the largest of them, leading the way. 

“Figured I’d come check on everything, you know?” Georgie says. Sasha spins a tale about the dangers of carpenter ants in old paper, forcing a forced laugh, acting excellently as if the anecdote is hard to tell.

Jon feels like a celebrity. Despite the circumstances, he can’t help but feel especially pleased at the attention. It’s been a while since things have felt this  _ okay _ . Even if Martin isn’t-

The hairs on the back of Jon’s neck stand up.

Tim tenses, grabbing Jon and Sasha tightly as he stares with rapt interest.

“What?” Georgie whispers. “Is that who tried to kill you?”

Martin dashes down the steps and away from the institute. 

Jon doesn’t know how to answer.

For a moment all Jon wants to do is go after him. Push past Tim and Georgie and...and.

_ Observe?  _ Some part of The Archivist that is not him supplies. 

But that’s not it. 

Instead, he watches Martin with everyone else, feeling his vision zoom to twice the size, illuminating Martin’s expression. That his jaw was turned in just the direction that says he’s pretending he can’t see them.

It made Jon feel...feel...sad.

“Hey!” Tim barks, Squeezing Jon until it hurts, shaking with restraint.

Martin starts violently.

“You know what your  _ little friend _ did to Jon? Tried to pull an Elias v. Lietner. How does that make you  _ feel _ ?” a couple of teens speed up their pace and look the other way.

For just a second Martin stops walking. Jon can only watch as his face melts into sadness, then guilt. Finally hardening into a look of resolve. He sets off again. Faster this time.

_ Goodbye, _

_ Signed Blackwood. _

Sasha strokes her hand down Tim’s arm in an attempt to sooth him. They share a tender look.

Jon is too focused on Martin to notice.

Georgie comes to Tim and Sasha’s flat for dinner, and is in the kitchen with Tim making curry, pretending she doesn’t notice how tightly he grips the spoons and curses under his breath.

Sasha and Jon sit in the living room side by side. Her hand running down his arm soothingly. Jon missed this. Missed trusting her. Unlike Martin, Sasha had a special kind of caring, always putting herself first and everyone else in close second. She expressed her love through touch, and it filled a gap in Jon. He had no idea what he’d do if she were Not there.

“Tell me about Martin.” He asks “Please.”

Sasha doesn’t acknowledge the waver in his voice, for which Jon is grateful.

“He says something bad is coming. Peter told him so.”

Jon wrinkles his nose, and Sasha chuckles, smoothing his face with her thumb.

“Jealous, are we?”

Jon huffs “No.” He says like a child “Worried.”

“I wouldn’t be, I taught him how to recognise manipulation when we talked about...I taught him how to recognise manipulation.”

Jon let’s it slide.

“Martin’s smart. He knows what he’s doing, and we have to have faith.

There it is again, Jon thinks. Faith. What an odd concept.

“If anything, the problem here is Tim. I love him, but…” She squeezes Jon’s hand, worrying her lip “I know he’s helping in his own way.

“He was so grateful when you passed us the detonator. The whole time he thought you were setting him up to take on the unknowing yourself. Tim was bitter at the idea that you’d try and die for him and he’d lose another brother.”

“Brother?” Jon asks, surprised.

Sasha laughs her laugh that sounds like wind chimes in a breeze.

“Yes, Jon. Brother. 

“He was so protective of you while you were out. Martin had a hard time getting through him. I think he snuck in at night somehow. Every time I visited there were fresh flowers. Tim didn’t take credit for it.

“He gave one of the nurses a fright enough to make a statement, if you believe it! ‘Said there was fog spilling out from under your door.”

Suddenly all Jon wants is to go to bed. 

Sasha reads this immediately “If I leave you’re just going to wallow.” She says matter-of-factly. 

Jon opens his mouth to protests but she cuts him off with a look.

“Georgie,” Sasha calls, leaning into the kitchen “How long do you plan to stay?”

“How long will you have me?”

“Long enough for a movie.”

“Sounds awesome.” 

Sasha turns back to Jon, “You go get washed up, okay? We’re watching Monty Python.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all my amazing Betas who really helped me refine this:  
> Imbekkable- Check out their awesome fic [ And They Were Zoommates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842450/chapters/57297796) It's one of my personal favorites.  
> [ Gheloured ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gheloured)  
> and [ Lleah on instagram! ](https://instagram.com/lleahistired?igshid=ljvxs1wgs2q5)  
> [ Charlie really inpired me to keep going! Check out their TMA art!](https://instagram.com/littlerobinsart?igshid=1ceu566s9u59i)


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonny boy breaks the law a little!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw for stalking.

Jon has to admit the movie is quite funny. Tim and Sasha, piled atop each other on the loveseat, fall into fits of giggles again and again over exclamations of “We are the knights that say--Ne!”

“Ne!”

Georgie leans her head on Jon’s shoulder, her hair just as soft and her breathing as slow as he remembered, a little bitter part of him can’t help but wish that Martin was there in her place. He loves Georgie, but as close as they are he knows she’d leave him behind in an instant. She has the right to, he knows, but that doesn’t make him feel better. There isn’t a spark at the pit of Jon’s stomach when he looks at her. Heat isn’t crawling up his face at her touch. None of that anymore. And Jon doesn’t mourn it. He almost wished he did, so he’d have any emotion to cling to that isn’t pining for that farthest man in London. At least if Georgie wasn’t here he could curl up on himself.

Sasha giggles as she whispers something to Tim that makes him bend in two, smiling as if his face hurts from the effort.

If Martin were here he’d take Jon’s hands in his own, run his thumb over Jon’s knuckles, bury his face in the space between Jon’s neck and shoulders and hum an old polish song. But by being around and by saying whatever he happens to think, Martin could fill Jon up with so much happiness he wouldn’t need to feel anything else for days.

Jon itches to pull out his phone, even though he can’t move with Georgie leaning against him. What would he even say? ‘I know you asked me to leave you alone but I just can’t stay away because no one believes in me quite like you do’. 

He realizes it’s exactly what he wants to say. But that isn’t fair. It isn’t right to make life harder for Martin just to satisfy what Jon knows is a mutual need for companionship. Not after all he’d put Martin through already.

Jon sighs as credits begin to roll. The movie was nice, and being here with his friends was nice as well, that doesn’t stop the overwhelming feeling he isn’t allowed to enjoy moments like these. Not yet.

Georgie doesn’t let go as quickly as she usually does when they hug goodbye. She stands drowsily in Jon’s arms and lets herself rock slowly. 

“You have everything you need, Jon, be happy.” She says into the shoulder of his pajamas shirt.

Georgie doesn’t know she’s lying. He appreciates the sentiment.

As Tim and Sasha disappear into the hall, Jon wills himself to sleep with fantasies of Martin being there to hold his hand.

\---

Jon Knows as soon as the visions fill his head. The same vivid images of something he couldn’t have seen, like his flashbacks to the unknowing. 

It’s Martin, sitting in Elias’s chair. All the tacky knick-knacks have been cleared from the desk, replaced with papers Martin goes through one by one. It almost lulls Jon into a sense of calm, before Martin takes the stack of papers and straightens them against the desk with a rolling cllllack.

“I know you’re there.” Martin says matter-of-factly. “I know what you smell like now.”

Jon feels his blood grow cold and face grow hot, and not just from the shame of being caught. 

But Martin isn’t talking to Jon.

Peter Lukas materializes of a low-lying fog that coats the office floor. Jon Knows just because he Sees it, doesn’t mean it’s really there.

Martin's next movements are careful, he pushes his chair smoothly back and rolls to his feet. Striding over to face Lukas. Standing just uncomfortably close to the man one inch his senior. Discomfort flickers onto Peter’s face, but he can’t step back without hitting a wall.

“You’re vile, do you know that?” Martin says. Boldly. Confidently

“Oh course I kno-”

“Oh shut up.” He sneers “I could hurt you right now, and I mean really hurt.”

“You wouldn’t hurt a bug!” Peter tries to laugh, his voice pitching up a little at the end.

“You're less than a bug.”

Peter’s resolve shatters “This is why I hate people. C-conflict.” He chokes out. His eyes slide away from Martin’s face, looking anywhere but at him.

“This wouldn’t happen if you stayed away from the people I l- If you had just stayed away from Jon.” Martin steps back, giving Peter room to breath.

He goes back to his administrative work while Peter catches his breath.

“I didn’t think you would be so difficult.”

“To what, manipulate me?”

“Yes.” Peter hisses “It’s all that Sarah Girl’s fault. If she didn’t have such a hold on you, I wouldn’t dare dispose of that little archivist. Elias would be pissed if I didn’t have a reason. I-It isn’t even like I’d have k-killed him! He’d just be out for another...while. Elias said it was go-”

“ I’ve told you I’m here because I choose to be. I feel no obligation to you.”

“You should lose people from this far away, you know. You and your friends they should be distant by now. I don't know. You-you just should. If don’t how--how can you ever be alone?”

Martin listens to Peters worried mumblings like it’s the smoothest of symphonies. Face set in a self-satisfied smile.

Peter furrows his brow as his mind runs through possibilities, trying to fit Martin inside his little view of the world, then his eyes blow wide.

He gasps a small “Elias.” before disappearing into mist and fading from the room.

Martin sits still for a moment longer, before he collapses into his seat. Rolling his shoulders and letting a purr escape his lips.

Jon tries to avert his eyes respectfully, but can’t.

Martin flips on a tape recorder he pulls from his desk drawer and opens the recording with his name and the date “Poetry spitballing. Number, ah...Nine I believe.”

Melodrama  
A pause  
That’s what I call it,  
Though I understand  
I, too  
“Hmm…”  
I too yearn towards  
The object I push farther away-

Jon shuts his eyes on the vision of Martin.

\---

The next time Jon sees him, they’re outside the institute. Martin a few paces ahead, so Jon watches as he strolls, hand-in-pocket, into the night. Watches the muscles in Martins shoulders as he swivels his head to take in the scene.

Jon would have gone home with Sasha and Tim today, like he had every day for the past week until they deemed it safe, but Sasha had approached Jon in his office to ask if he could wait a few hours before going to the flat after work.

“If you don’t mind me asking, What for?”

Sasha blinked at him slowly. Failing to keep a smile off of her face. “Cleaning.”

Jon knew he was missing something, but he didn’t press it.

By the time he stood in the night, admiring Martin’s shirt against his back, it was dark outside. Sasha hadn’t specified how long a couple hours was, so no one was expecting Jon anytime soon. 

Martin takes a left.

The flat is straight ahead.

The flat feels so far. Too full of noise, the pleasant noise of his friends but nonetheless, to feel worth the trip. Jon’s body feels heavy at the mere idea. But Martin slows the world down.

Making a choice, Jon follows Martin.

Watching Martin as he wanders under the yellow street lights of London is a transcendent experience. Jon crosses the street to get a better angle on Martin’s face, his eyes seeing every expression in high quality. He watches Martin puff up his chest to face an incoming group of friends as they exit a bar. As soon as they pass him he deflates, turning to stare as the group leans on eachother merrilly. 

As Jon watches Martin watch these people, he can’t but notice the Tallest in the group has the same slim build and black hair as Tim. Martin’s face holds an expression of soft desolation.

He goes on like this for a while. Watching London's nightlife from a cold, polite distance. Jon couldn’t count on two hands the shaky sighs Martin has heaved in the last hour.

Jon pulls in close as Martin walks into a little antique shop open late. The door propped with a brick, He can hear Martin's soft tenor as he talks to the shopkeeper. Skirting questions like “How are you?” and “Why are you out this late?” to offer the bare minimum of polite conversation. Martin leaves with a fountain pen in his hand, and a small rectangular box evident in his pocket.

The next stop Martin makes is into a cafe. The Watcher’s Man proclaims the sign above the door. It’s busy enough, so Jon enters after him.

When Martin slides into a booth, Jon slips into the one behind him, so that Martin’s back is to him. Martin pulls out the fountain pen, and a small pad of paper that was tucked into his pocket, and starts writing.

After a few minutes, a waitress with a kind face takes their order. Martin’s , who asks for chai tea and a scone, and then Jon’s. The Archivist tweaks his voice to match that of a statement he’d read earlier. Martin doesn’t flinch, so he figures it's convincing.

When she leaves, Martin leans back, stretching his arms out to rest atop the length of the booth. His shoulders give several satisfying pops

Jon enjoys this immensely.

“I know that cup of tea.” Martin says to the air in front of him “Jon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehehehehehe cliff hangers >:)


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> somebody's in trouuuble  
> No CW

It feels weird, uncomfortable, to sit in front of Martin and after all this time, and say nothing. 

When Jon was a child, and he went to his grandmother about how he felt, she would always cut him off at the meat of his sentence. “Fine.” she’d say. “You feel fine.” Jon could only agree.

Sasha had been working with him to express more deeply. But it was a process. 

Jon doesn't have a word for the feeling he gets in the pit of his stomach now. Martin looks somewhat content as he pulls numbers from his phone to work out on his notepad where  _ Jon swears he Saw poetry earlier _ , or rather, as content as someone so cold can be. 

Jon sips his tea and nibbles at the blueberry scone Martin slid across the table to him. He was grateful. Besides when he was with Tim and Sasha, Jon had a habit of skipping dinner, but now that his body was used to it, he felt ravenous.

Martin caps his pen with a  _ click _ .

“Why are you here, Jon? Is there anything you need to tell me?” His grandmother would say the same when Jon left his room to be in the sitting room with her. Jon would duck his said, mumble something like “No, or course not” and stalk away.

Under Martin’s scrutinizing gaze, he couldn’t feel more different. Something in Jon’s head screams “Of course I have something to say!” but when he asks it what, exactly, that is, it doesn’t know either. He stays silent.

Instead of words, Jon pulls the scrapbook from his bag, sliding it across the table. Martin takes it silently, it feels worse than being hit.

“If you’re here Sasha clearly hasn’t explained things.” Martin crosses his arms like making a wall between them.

She has. Jon knows she has. Sasha told him to have faith. To trust Martin. And he did trust Martin, he just wanted to trust him closer. 

“She tried.” Jon lies, the words sounding bitter.

Martin nods, and lets silence fall onto their table.

When they finish their tea, Martin stands. His shoulders not slouched forward, but held at normal height. Well, normal for anyone who wasn’t Martin. Whenever Jon found him in the stacks of the archives, he stood as if trying to be much, much smaller.

With Martin at his full height, it was Jon’s turn to feel small.

“Walk with me, Jon.”

They exit the Cafe side by side and Jon jogs ahead to hold the door, which earns him a look, but at least Martin is looking at him at all. Jon can’t help the smile that appears on his face.

They walk a few blocks in silence. Jon knows Martin is Lonely, but it doesn’t stop the giddy sense of camaraderie he feels at being around his friend.

Jon reaches his hand out for Martin’s, but Martin flinches away with a startled sound.

“No- what? Not... Not that.” Martin says.

But that’s okay, there are times that Tim doesn’t want to hold hands either.

Martin swallows “It’s Lukas. You know him. Or rather, know  _ of _ him. Peter?”

Jon nods.

“He suspects something very terrible is coming and I can help- and no I’m not telling you what it is because you’ll go off and try to fix it yourself.

“I’m not letting that happen.” Martin finishes darkly.

“And this requires that you be alone?”

“Not alone, no. Just...Lonely.” Martin turns his view to a couple strolling across the street, a woman leaning on her girlfriend’s shoulders “ Which works better for me if I see them from far away.”

Jon looks at the ground so that he isn’t caught staring.

They keep walking. A small part of Jon fears he won’t easily find his way home. He supposes that may be the point.

He finds himself drifting closer to Martin. Every third step, placing his foot ever so slightly to the side. Jon pretends not to notice when his arm brushes Martin’s. Martin who tenses and stops dead. Suddenly enthralled with the plaque on a bench. Jon waits for him a few paces ahead, but by the time Martin catches up the distance Jon closed between them is back in full.

So Jon tries again.

“I need you to stop doing that!” Martin snaps, and catches himself “ _ Please _ .”

“Why?” Jon asks. His heart is beating hard. This was his norm with Sasha and Tim. This was normal now, right? Nothing made sense. He was glad that in the darkness of this alleyway Martin couldn’t see his desperate expression. 

“I don’t have to explain everything to you.”

“ _ Why. _ ” Static crinkles in the air around them as Jon’s voice goes low, song-like, his gaze on Martin's dimly lit face intense and Seeing. 

“Because being around you makes me feel whole and I can’t feel that way if I’m going to protect you.” It spills out of Martin’s lips matter-of-factly. As if it's a mantra he repeats to himself often.

The air around them grows cold and thick with mist.

“What the  _ hell _ did you just do, Jon.” It’s as if Martin grows larger, eyes glowing dimly in the dark.

“I-I don’t know.” Jon says, his feet carry him backward for only a moment before his shoulders hit a brick wall, hard. Guilt pools in Jon’s stomach, making his ears pulse with the sound of self hatred.

Just because I See it, doesn’t mean it’s there. Jon repeats to himself. It doesn’t stop his heart from beating faster. The Archivist knows he’s Seeing exactly how dangerous this really is. Isn’t it right of Martin to threaten him after invading his privacy, after going against Martin’s  _ one _ wish just to satisfy his own petty need? Jon kicks himself, of course it is. 

But Martin wouldn’t hurt him. Right? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d pushed just a little too hard. Jon finds himself doubting.

“Well you better Know, and quick.” Martin growls. He slams the flat of his hand into the wall above Jon’s shoulder. Jon flinches hard, feeling his face flush. Somewhere in the distance, a peal of thunder.

“Well, I asked a question...and I guess you felt Compelled to answer--I Compelled you. I swear I didn’t mean to, this is the first time.” Jon put his hands up in soft surrender, oh he wished Martin would take them.

“Why are you here?” Martin asks. It’s the same question from the cafe, but with the shell sanded away, stripped of its professional pretense, asking for a  _ real _ answer. It isn’t the Lonely asking. Just Martin, feeling Seen.

Jon swallows his silence and drags to the surface a truth he’d been hiding from himself.

“Because when I’m around you I can only see what I want to see. I’m... _ Obscured _ .” he swallows “You feel safe.”

Martin's face falls from anger to a look like betrayal. Stooping as if he’s trying to fit inside a box that’s too small for him.

“You don’t feel anything from being around me, Jon. You just think you do. The Lonely does that. Makes you harder to See. I guess a bit of it rubbed off on you.”

Jon feels trapped in his body, wanting to reach for Martin and cup his face and  _ scream _ . Scream ‘You know that isn’t true’ and ‘I’ve always felt safe around you’ and ‘I don’t know if I’m ready to say it yet but I love you and I’ll keep loving you until you need me’.

He only stays fearfully silent.

“If you want to manage the eye, I suggest you self isolate until you feel like your world is crumbling apart.” The lilt of Martin’s voice suggests it’s a joke, which he laughs cruelly at. “Until you’ve forgotten that you exist in the context of others and not just in your spiralling mind, fighting off anyone who comes to save you from yourself…”

“Or maybe get over yourself, Jon.” Martin removes his hand from where it brackets Jon against the wall, talking a long step back. 

He’s careful not to touch Jon as he does. A wash of disappointment floods him.

“Don’t follow me this time. If you try, I’ll just make sure you can’t.” It isn’t a threat, it’s a fact. And with that, Martin turns his back to Jon and walks away. Alone.

Breathing hard still, face flushed, Jon squeezes his eyes shut and Looks at Martin as he leaves. He only watches for half a block before Martin stops, sighs, and buries himself amongst the mist.

“I said a couple hours, Jon. A couple. As in two--have you ever heard that?”

Jon tries to smile as Sasha lectures, but his heart is still heavy with the experience of seeing martin.

Tim stops pacing. “Have you had dinner?”

“...Yes.”

“What did you eat?” Sasha asks skeptically.

“A scone.”

“A  _ Scone! _ ” She mocks, her laugh exhausted and bordering on crazed.

“It had blueberries?”

Tim scoffs and goes to fix a plate. Sasha stares after him, checking he’s gone before her expression hardens into something serious.

“I know you stay late, but you don’t come in at 11 pm unless you have a reason. What were you chasing?”

When Jon doesn’t answer, feeling caught in a crime for a second time today, Sasha softens.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” She says squeezing his hand.

“Yes I know. I, um...I spent some time with Martin.” He admits.

Sasha squeaks in surprise. “Oh! Okay?” a grin creeps up her face as she wiggles her eyebrows, a habit she picked up from Tim.

“Wanna talk about it?” she giggles.

“No.”

“You’re insufferable, never dishing.” She swats his arm, and Jon laughs, knowing she doesn’t mean it.

“I heard we’re dishing?” Tim says, placing a bowl of chicken and broccoli into Jon’s lap.

Jon gives Sasha a warning look.

“Nope! Jon was just pitching a variation on our sorting system. Remember how there’s confusion with two statements taken on the same day?”

“Yeah!” Tim ranted “So many students came to me about that!”

Jon starred as Sasha lied as smoothly as soft serve, just to save him the inconvenience of defending Martin to him. He feels good. He feels safe.

Jon was going to help Martin feel it too, if it was the last thing he did.

“I have a request for the two of you.”

Tim goes silent immediately, and Sasha cocks a brow.

“We need statements marked. True statements, I mean. Quickly.” The feeling of being watched presses on the back of Jon’s mind. He squeezes his fist together and restrains it. “Close your eyes.” Jon snaps.

“Jon why-”

Jon here's the soft sound of fabric as Sasha hits Tim lightly “Shut up and do it.”

Jon fumbles for their hands and takes a deep breath as he traces the shape of a closed eye onto their palms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter was a little short (I think? It's all prewritten so...) but the next one is much longer!  
> Come join me on tumblr at @drumkonwords or submit your Rusty Quill audio clips to my collection blog @rq-audio


	7. Chapter six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things taken and things changed from mag 158-160

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a few hours late because I forgot lol. Here go. It ended up double my usual world count so enjoy that

Yet another not-a-dream. Jon’s eyes stay shut while his Eye opens in his office. He can read the fat fingerprints on the tape as Martin’s. It sits lazilly on his desk like a lover wearing something brand-new, not so much tempting as waiting. He doesn’t opt for a recorder, Jon  _ can’t _ because he isn’t really there. He simply looks into the intestines of the thing, each minute magnetic divot, and he reads the tape like a scrap of the morning’s news.

_ You’re not going to die, if that’s what you’re asking...How does that make you feel? _

_ Nothing _

The resignation in his voice is familiar to Jon. the distant tone that slipped under his door as Sasha tried to patch the whole where Jon’s gratitude should have been. But that laugh that comes from him drops to the floor rather than erupt readily out into the room, heavy with mist. It lands with a dull thud, or maybe that’s the sound of Jon’s head on the desk.

_ Nothing at all. _

But Jon isn’t really there. If he were to cast eyes upon himself he wouldn’t really see. A vague, translucent man sleeps with furrow brow in Jon’s bed. A determined expression hardens on Jon’s face, now opaque.

He turns his Eye to the thud, and a mud-covered Elias grins back at him. Jon doesn’t spare him the pleasure of his surprise. Jon closes his Eye.

\---

“Tim, wake up Sasha and make sure Daisy and Basira will be at the institute today. Preferably get there early and I  _ mean it this time _ .” Jon raises his voice over Tim’s protest. “No I’m not anywhere  **_Do you understand how urgent this is._ ** ” Jon lets out a breath of relief at Tim’s confirmation. He can explain later, he can be sorry later. 

“Get what we need to pack up, please. “He hangs up the phone before Tim can deduce where he is from the background noise. 

Jon doesn’t hesitate before knocking on Georgie’s door. No speed of drumming his fingers makes the wait any shorter.

Melanie answers groggily, and snaps into a nearly-alert anger when she sees him.

Jon only smiles. As brightly as he can manage. It reaches his eyes even though it shouldn’t; he has more control over his eyes now. It shuts her up just as quickly as Jon knew it would, but he cannot feel guilty. He does not have the time. 

“Would it help if I said this is a goodbye?”

Georgie is awake, still in bed, one of Melanie’s too-small shirts acting as her pajamas. 

“What were they selling?” She laughs, before Jon appears in the doorway, she reads his face before he gets to speak “What’s wrong?” 

“Would it help if I said it’s not you? Because it definitely m-”

“Jon.” She warns.

“I have to go. London. Leave. I’m-” Jon takes a deep breath and shuts off the stream of visions he’s been monitoring, he fixes his two physical eyes on Georgie. 

“Please don’t tell me you’ve killed someone again.”

“I Haven’t actually murdered anyone, yet!” Jon says, throwing his hands up. They drop quickly. “Well...No, no not the point. The point is that I am dangerous now. Everyone near me is in danger.”

Melanie steps away from him, and Jon suppresses the urge to roll his eyes.

“So this is goodbye, then?” 

Georgie doesn’t look sad. Jon knew, lower case k, that she wouldn’t. He can’t help but admire her one last time. Her looks haven’t changed much over the years, permanent crows feet are growing outside her eyes, faster now from her time with Melanie. That’s good. 

Nostalgia curls in the pit of Jon’s stomach as he remembers how the just look of Georgie’s lips used to make him flush. He doesn’t feel it anymore, just the shell of a memory. Tears prickle his eyes. Jon wishes there was more poetry to this. Music playing that circles around and encompases all his emotions. Ripping it out of him with a final ringing note, leaving him nothing to mourn nor hope for.

“I wish I could be sorry.” Jon whispers “I wish that this could be another silly mistake I’m making, but it isn’t. You didn’t sign up to bear the brunt of my choices. I think it’s best if we- If we-”

Jon guffaws dryly “Have a little space?”

“How much space?” Georgie asks, rolling out of bed. She holds her hands tentatively outward, not quite reaching. 

“If I disappear off the map or the bodies of my and my coworkers are found brutally mutilated I need you to skip the funeral.”

Melanie whistles low, and turns tail to make her way back to the sitting room, eyes wide.

“ _ Fuck _ , Jon! What have you- no. I don't want to know, do I?”

Jon flashes one last winning smile.

“There a chance you’ll be back?” Georgie makes the first contact, large hand curling around his upper arm. Then their scrambling to reach each other like they did, drunk and affectionate, in college, swaying under the London sweetlamps as Georgie hummed songs of longing for her rose red. It was an early hint they weren’t meant for eachother, her longing, but at the time they were fooled into thinking it love. 

They sway now, with the forced slowness of savouring something you’re used to taking in a rush. Jon presses the bottom half of his face into Georgie’s shoulder, letting his eyelids flit half-closed as the tears build up again.

“Don’t count on it.” Jon answers “I wish I could tell you how long to wait but I don’t know. I know  _ so much _ but not this.”

Jon knows that Peter is dressing himself with a smug grin pointed at no one. The empty, impossibly long stretches of mirrored hallway that make up his home smile back at him. 

Jon knows that Martin is blissfully dreaming of him, and how the bliss will turn cold when Martin awakes to empty arms and remembers the “Jon” in his dreams has Peter’s face and wouldn't touch him. 

Tim is filling the back of his truck with the contents of an entire office-max as Sasha sits in the passenger seat desperately asking Basira to put Daisy on the phone ‘I promise she knows me, I don’t have time to explain.’ Basira insists on knowing how Sasha ‘Knows my partner’ the use of “partner” is infuriatingly deliberate.

Melanie twiddles her thumbs in the sitting room. She regrets stepping out. A shameful blush forms on her face as she eyes the bedroom door with mistrust, and then anger, before taking a deep breath. She squeezes her arm where Georgie first squeezed Jon’s, because who Geogie loves may change, but how never will.

_ Rose, Rose, Rose red _

_ Will I ever see thee wed? _

_ I will marry at thy will sir, _

_ At thy will _

_ Ding dong, Di- _

Jon humors her for the first stanza of the round. Georgie takes the lower part to mess with him, and Jon’s voice cracks in a way that might be funny if it weren’t laden with tears. He cannot finish the song. He does not want to be done.

“Here.” and Jon pulls a burner phone from his coat pocket, pressing it into Georgie’s palm. “If I ever need to find you.”

She tucks it into her waistband “I hope you have everything you need, Jon.” She whispers into the curls falling from his rushed bun. 

“I plan to go get it.” Jon pulls himself out of the hug mid-sway, stumbling for a moment, he forces a smile onto his face, it’s broken, not as effective as the one he used to push his way in here. He doesn’t need it to be. Jon only needs it to show pain. His fingertips brush the door handle.

“Jon?” 

“Yes?” and his last look over his shoulder is not desperate, but rushed. Annoyed, almost.

“Don’t come back until it’s safe. I can’t- I can’t.” 

Jon swallows down the hot sting in his throat. “Right. Yes. Goodbye, Georgie.”

He nods to Melanie shortly in the hall, turning away from her just as the first tear falls. The word rings in his head.

_ Goodbye, Georgie _

_ Goodbye _

_ -Goodbye, _

_ Signed, Blackwood _

Jon presses the heels of his hand to his eyes, forcing the tears, those ready and those upcoming, out of his eyes. They glow a soft hazel-green.

\---

Jon dashes into the building, he doesn’t give the elevator a second glance, but he skitters to a halt in front of the reception.

“HSE-mandates-a-fire-drill-every-month, Rosie. Saw-some-clip-boards-outside better, call it now. Elias-even-says-you-can-" Jon draws a shaky breath "have-the-rest-of-the-day-off, everyone can.” He pauses just long enough to match her skeptical stare with a confident one, and dashes to the archives as soon as the lights start to flash.

He takes the stairs. In his rush, Jon almost considers jumping down to the first landing, but a broken leg won’t help anyone. 

The archive has erupted into a mess that would make even Gertrude turn over in her grave, if even just to feel self-satisfied one last time. Folders with a closed eye on their tabs are pulled and stuffed into boxes without thought, all the tapes conveniently packed up on their own, that, at least, they could do without arousing suspicion too early. Tim is stacking boxes onto a trolly, Basira's double checking each statement packed in the box on her lap is marked, the other two are nowhere to be seen. For anyone but Jon, that is. 

“Third from the top, one misfile.” He calls to Tim, who gives him a withering glare but reaches for the box anyways. Paper is scattered on the floor with just enough care that It won't be tripped on, Jon manages to fall anyways, Toe catching on a bookshelf as he turns too tight a corner. His chin hits the floor with a dull thwack, decent just barely slowed by his hands. 

Jon regrets wearing a suit. He wonders why he’s wearing a suit.

_ Today is important _ he supposes. It’s enough to make him laugh as the adrenaline starts to fade and the ache in his knees grows.

The door to the archive is flung open. “Oh Jooo- oh! Oh more of you!”

“Think you can take this one on your own, Julia?” Trevor chuckles.

Jonathan see’s without seeing how Tim’s eyes light up to the beat of a war-drum. Basira ducks under a table on instinct. Somewhere deeper in the archives, Daisy’s head snaps to attention.

Jon knows without knowing that, while unexpected, the two monster killers will not be a threat.

\---

He races through the tunnels following the beacon of dread that makes up Elias’s form. Running into the open space of the panopticon, Jon feels  _ spat out _ . 

“Ah, Jon. I was almost worried. You found your way alright?” 

“Can it, worm-bag.” Elias’s eyebrows shoot up, but Jon isn’t thinking about him, or his crude mimicry of Georgie’s insult-style, his Eyes are focused on Martin and Martin alone. All of his Eyes. They seem to grow in number with the length of Jon’s stare. 

Jon only see’s the misty cobblestone path into the lonely. Which at first is not really there, then, suddenly, is. He doesn’t see Elias bruised and sprawling on the floor where he’d been pushed, or feel the residual strain in the wrist of his offending hand. 

First Jon is running, and then all is slow.

He’s vaguely aware the road he walks on is a cobblestone one. Impractically thin, too much so for someone to walk by his side, and yet it stretches on forever in all directions. Or it might, if the fog didn’t obscure every direction but backwards.

Hills are in the distance. A shadow that can hardly be called a shape, just a smudge of darkness sprouting from the already vague horizon. Yellow specks of light dot the hills. Tiny. Impossibly tiny and impossibly far. But Jon has so much time. Someone is in those houses, someone who might welcome him out of the cold morning, or shun him without a second thought, but that isn’t a concern just yet.

The concern is that they might turn off their light before he arrives. Jon imagines the people inside. He doesn’t know anybody, he’s never known anybody, but he knows names. Two figures named Tim and Sasha love each other in a way they will not love anyone else especially not Jon. Jon doesn’t feel bitter. He just missed his chance, after all.

He really should walk faster.

And then there are women sitting around a table drinking tea. He imagined it would be hot. It is a cold morning and hot tea sounds like such a comfort. One that should be familiar, but for the life of Jon, he cannot remember the sensation of warmth on his tongue, or anywhere at all.

Melanie cackles something about a loser and the woman next to her, Georgie is such a pretty name, it might as well be Georgie, leans in to cut off the laugh with a kiss. Jon feels a stab of pain without the pain. He feels distinctly unimpressed, but can’t quite remember why.

And they're playing cards. The woman with sharp teeth smiles a grin as if she’d just been in for a whitening. She looks at her hand, fanned out and facing sharply away from the other players. She gives Barisa a wink.

Jon feels the urge to roll his eyes. He isn’t sure why. No one is around to see him. Nobody ever was. How does he know to roll his eyes?

Daisy draws a sharp nailed finger over her hand, and plucks a card which she throws on the table with a flourish. 

“THE FOOL” is says in ominous lettering. A picture of a face, the face of a man who might be named Jon but doesn’t have a name at all, looks up from the discard pile. The women ooh and ahh. Jon almost wants to laugh, but the spark dies in his chest

Basira is the next to draw a card. She does it without flourish or consideration, her hand lying face-down on the table, she reaches to the left-most one and flips it over.

“THE LOVER █” 

The card is mutilated, one of two figures drawn delicately in an interlocking pose is scribbled out with sharpie. The man who remains looks tired. Tousled curls forming a haloing crown in the soft light in the art. His face was serene once, before it was drawn over into a look that might mean fear if Jon had ever seen a human face. 

Then Jon blinks. How does he blink within his own mind? He does not know. Maybe this is not his mind. Maybe he does not have a mind. No, Minds think and this is thinking. The face now looks resigned.

Jon resolves to worry about his existence at a later date, the face on the card calls to him with a tongueless, tuneless voice. He hears in in the way the mist curls around his ear and wipes his sweating brow as Jon charges onward.

The face. The face named Blackwood. Named Blackwood. Blackwood. Black.

All of Jon’s Eyes snap open at once, not forcing the fog away, but casting a light enough to see through it, if only for a few more meters in every direction.

“Mahtin!” he calls. And his voice feels loud and well-warmed up. Light he’d done scales and had a tall mug of honeyed tea.

“He doesn’t want to see you.” Peter says, his voice lulling into soft echoes against the distant hills that are neither hills nor distant. The lights have all gone out. There were never lights. Never women. Only envy.

“Want and need have different levels of priority. I’m short on time and patience, Lukas. Where is he.”

“ _ Who _ is he, is a better question.”  _ ion ion ion ion _ the echo sounds like a laugh.

“I can quite literally smell your bluff. Hard to discern over your fear, though.” 

He’s answered by the echo of silence. 

“Martin. Martin!” Jon sighs, “Mahtin! Ma-”

“So you’re back again to haunt me? Come to taunt me? To bleed into the mist?” Martin laughs dryly, like the frays of cheap acrylic yarn pulled until tense and cutting, and then beyond, fracturing into strands that are all microplastics and no more of their facade of handwoven, homely warmth. “Do you like that? I figured if you keep coming to mock me I might as well make it poetry. What do you think comes next? ‘To bleed into the mist? See a pout upon my lips not often kissed?’ that’s quite swell! I think I write better here. Another reason so stay.”

“So I’m assuming you get visions of, of me? That’s trouble. Then how do I convince you I’m real? Because I am real.

Martin only gives a bored, distant look “You really should have timed out by now, or something, and to think that I loved you. Oh, I did love you, you know?”

On Jon’s cheeks is the first warmth he’s felt in what might be months. Martin seems to notice with a look that almost meets surprise. 

“So this place won’t run out of new ways to make me feel miserable, will it? Fine.” Martin says, shoulders slumping forward, his skin goes pale as the mist shines through it. “Fine.”

Martin fades into nothing.

“Seems he belongs here, doesn’t it, Archivist?”

“Maybe it would if I couldn’t see all of this place. All of its thinly veiled lies.”

“Lies? We’re all alone, Jon. Just like all those lady friends of yours. Left you for each other. How does that make you feel?”  _ eel eel eel eel. _

Jon’s eyebrows shoot upward, it starts as a scoff, but doesn’t quite stop. In seconds he’s clutching his belly laughing. “E-ex.... my god,  _ excuse me? _ ” Jon doesn’t see the glow coming off of him until Peter’s already screaming. He whipes elated tears from his eyes, although his Eyes and Eyes and Eyes continue to weep their delight, and turns to the man, crouched in front of him. Jon watches as his flesh grows thick with spheres, just under his skin and looking inwards, growing inwards, replacing organs with eyes and blood with tears. Peter’s face is swollen with them, though this group stare back at Jon inquisitively. 

“I can see you. I can see all of your miserable little life and the expanse of all your terrible experiences and I  _ know _ you.” Peter’s scream crescendos. It’s a shame that he almost looked corrupted in his dying minutes, he made a handsome figure. He might still make a handsome figure if you ask the right person. 

Jon crouches in front of the man, head swimming with soft ecstasy, adrenaline, and  _ tears _ . “Before you die Peter, let me offer you this. A gift, if you will. I want to show you a truth. Now tell me Peter,  **_Who have you loved_ ** .”

Tongue protests in Peter’s mouth, folds over and nearly chokes on itself, Jon can feel Peter's longing that an eye might erupt in his mouth and stop him from saying that which he has never admitted. Jon denies him the comfort.

“Elias!” Peter spits, he groans in self-disgust before his mouth rears back again “Elias! Elias! Fuck!” 

Without a last sound Peter fades into silence. A whole silence. A silence like one that was never known yearning.

Jon knows who he turns to face.

“His only wish was to die alone.” Martin observes blankly.

“Tough.” 

Jon can’t help but study Martin, stood in front of him, beaten and dejected. His heart feels heavy with it. “Come here.” he says.

It’s hardly more than a whisper, but Martin hears, there’s no other sound but that of the mist. Martin stays rooted in place, staring at the floor. Jon steps up to him, and pushes down all of the alarms in his head as he places his hand on Martin’s upper arm. Martin tenses harshly, but doesn’t look up.

Jon continues anyway, guiding Martin’s palm to the small of his back, Martin’s arms don’t feel solid around Jon, but for now that is okay. He interlaces the fingers on their other hands and draws himself in close to Martin, hands held between their chest as Jon sings.

_ Rose, rose, rose red _

_ Will I ever see thee wed? _

_ I will marry at thy will, sir _

_ At thy will _

_ Ding dong Ding Dong _

_ Wedding bells on an April morn _

_ Carve thy name on a moss covered stone _

_ On a moss covered stone. _

Martin doesn’t know it’s a round, he doesn’t sing the other part, but he has all the time in the world to learn. All the time it takes for him to grow solid and heavy against Jon, to grin into his damp hair and gasp in no small delight as Jon’s voice glosses over the highest of the notes.

So Jon says that it is a round and keeps singing for all the Time it takes to walk out of The Lonely, so give Elias’s concussed form a good kick, to emerge from the tunnels and step wordlessly over the body of Julia Montak, only pausing to read the note in Daisy’s sharp script that says

‘My buddies will take care of it.’

All the time it talks to walk to the parking lot where Jon left his scarcely-used car and to climb into the front two seats.

_ Rose, rose, rose red _

_ Will I ever see thee wed? _

And the yearning still does not mean love. But it means “I want love” it might one day mean “I deserve it.”

_ I will marry at thy will, sir _

_ At thy will _

Tim’s truck is long gone, he knew not to wait up, no being helped if they both got lost in The Lonely. 

_ Ding dong Ding Dong _

_ Wedding bells on an April morn _

Martin falls into an easy sleep, one hand held in Jon’s, spasming occasionally with anxiety but always settling down again.

_ Carve thy name on a moss covered stone _

_ On a moss covered stone. _

And Jon pulls out of London, turning north, to face a new time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next six chapters of this fic are a second part in a series and already written. I'm very excited for it and I hope you are too!

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! This is my first long fic and I've spent a lot of time on it so I hope you enjoy! Parts one and two for the series are done, and part three is planned out. I Plan on updating every Friday but with a couple chapters to start things off!  
> Thanks to all my amazing Betas who really helped me refine this:  
> Imbekkable- Check out their awesome fic [ And They Were Zoommates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842450/chapters/57297796) It's one of my personal favorites.  
> [ Gheloured ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gheloured)  
> and [ Lleah on instagram! ](https://instagram.com/lleahistired?igshid=ljvxs1wgs2q5)


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